


and you stayed up to see the sun (I couldn't wait that long)

by ArchangelUnmei



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cor Leonis Week, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, RegClar if you squint, Survivor Guilt, after the dawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 09:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16910337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchangelUnmei/pseuds/ArchangelUnmei
Summary: Cor never expected to survive to see the Dawn.Cor neveraskedto survive to see the Dawn.Now he has to figure out what he's going to do, with no war to fight and no King to serve.





	and you stayed up to see the sun (I couldn't wait that long)

**Author's Note:**

> Before we get started, I know there's an interview floating around where the director of FFXV reveals that Ignis, Gladio and Prompto survived to see the Dawn. However, I choose to disregard that. Given all the evidence and symbolism actually presented in the game, I feel it serves their characters and their stories better that they didn't survive. So that's the headcanon I'm going with for this.
> 
> The title is from the Wolf Gang song _Lions in Cages_ , which is suuuuuch a good Regis+Cor song omg.
> 
> Technically written for Cor Leonis week, but it doesn't match any of the prompts. XD

The sun rises.

Cor is so busy fighting the demons that are swarming the streets around the Citadel that he doesn't notice the sky above him growing lighter. When the sun crests the horizon, it hits him in the eyes and dazzles him. It's a good thing the Red Giant he'd been crossing swords with dissolves with a high-pitched wail, otherwise Cor's stint as the Immortal might have finally been brought to an end. 

For a long minute he stands still, hand gripped tight around his sword and just _breathing_ as demons shriek and dissolve all around him. For the first time in ten years, Insomnia is bathed in sunlight. 

In minutes, the streets are empty, nothing left of the demons except fading puddles of black goop. Everything is silent, so silent it rings in Cor's ears and vibrates through his bones. For lack of anything else, Cor sheathes his sword and turns to follow the Citadel's shadow. 

He wants to call out, but his voice is stuck behind the lump in his throat. And really... he knows what he'll find before he even finds it. The tattered uniforms that match the one he wears, blood splashed dark across the steps of the Citadel. He finds Gladio's shield - the Amicitia shield - cracked down the middle, split like the rib cage of the man who bore it. 

Cor can't breathe. He remembers giving Gladio rides on his shoulders and picking him up from school when Clarus was busy. Teaching Ignis knife tricks after training was over, getting the stern boy to laugh with delight. Correcting Prompto's stance as he learns to shoot, watching his confidence grow. 

How 

How did it come to this, where he's the one standing in the sunlight, their blood under his boots? 

He moves forward without thinking about it, stepping around their motionless bodies, drawn forward to ascend the stairs. He'll have to... to come back for them, undoubtedly, but they aren't going anywhere, and for now... 

They're missing one, and he has to know. 

The Citadel is somehow still standing, but it's about as bad as Cor feared. Parts of the walls and ceilings have caved in, leaving dust and rubble everywhere, and somehow it's more eerie in bright sunlight than it would be in gloom. Abandoned and empty, save for a trail of disturbance in the dust that leads Cor forward. 

There are sunbeams in the throne room, the glass from the windows long gone but their wide portals allowing plenty of light. It's almost blinding after so long in the dark, beautiful and terrible all at once. 

Cor can't bring himself to look up yet. His feet find the staircase without his permission, and on the way up he swears he passes Regis and Clarus walking downward for the last time, their chatter light and somewhere just beyond his hearing. He snaps around to try and follow them, heart cracking in a way he thought he'd mended over ten years of mourning. But of course they're gone. 

At the top, on his throne, he finds King Noctis. 

This boy that Cor had trained and harried and nagged and comforted and loved, this man he swore to serve until the end of everything. His expression is peaceful, the Ring on his finger dark and still and dead, and he's pinned to the throne by a sword that Cor knows as well as he knows his own. 

Cor drops to his knees, Noctis' still-tacky blood soaking into the pants of his uniform. He leans his head against the edge of the throne and sobs. 

\-------- 

The day is long, and yet somehow not long enough. Insomnia's streets are treacherous piles of rubble, so Cor warns everyone to stay out of the city for now. Most people are too busy reveling in the sun and are happy to comply. 

Iris and Aranea find him just after noon, his jacket discarded and sweat soaking through his shirt. The Citadel's gardens are dead and trampled, but still bare earth, and Cor isn't going to leave the boys - the men - who saved the world lying out like roadkill. The gardens would revive in time and be a place where people could come to honor them. 

Iris doesn't bother to stifle her cry when she sees her brother's body, laid out as neatly as Cor could manage with his cracked shield across his chest. Cor grabs her and hugs her fiercely, letting her cling and sob into his chest like she had when she was much smaller and fell and scraped her knees. 

Aranea takes the shovel from Cor without comment and leans into the messy work of gravedigging, four trenches all they can manage as the sun crawls across the sky. There isn't the time for public ceremonies or fancy caskets, nor do any of them think it's appropriate. The people are too happy to see the sun, full of relief and joy. Later, it will be time to tell them of the sacrifices it took, but for now they should be allowed to have that relief. 

And the three of them agree that none of the boys would want a big fuss made over them, not even Noctis. They'd simply done what they had to, walked the path the Astrals had forced them down. 

The sun is sinking behind the buildings by the time they're done, four graves unmarked, together as they'd been in life. Cor wraps his arms around Iris and Aranea as the gardens get darker, finally letting the bone-deep weariness settle into him. He doesn't remember when he last slept. 

They wait with shallow breath the darker it gets, but there is no hiss of demons, no chattering of imps. No bomb lights flickering through the rubble, no creak of a Ronin's sword. 

In the darkness there are _crickets_ beginning to chirp, and Aranea breaks into slightly hysterical laughter, which sets both Iris and Cor off, exhausted and grieving, heart-broken and so relieved. 

\-------- 

"What're we going to do, boss?" Libertus asks him after Cor has slept for about thirty hours. 

The overabundance of joy is beginning to wear off, and now people are starting to mill around and talk in tight clusters, all of them wondering the same thing. Everyone has adjusted to life in the dark, because it was adjust or die. But now there's the sun, and _hope_ , and yet everyone knows that things can't go back to the way they were. The ruins of Insomnia alone are testament enough of that. 

Cor takes a slow, deep breath, considering Libertus' words. Looking backwards, his entire life has been consumed by the war with Niflheim and the slow creeping darkness of Bahamut's prophesy. From the moment he'd joined the Crownsguard, _forty years ago_ , he's done nothing but struggle to push this boulder up a mountain, even if he didn't always know it. 

At the beginning, it had been easy, it had been almost _fun_ , with Regis and Clarus and Weskham and Cid bending their shoulders beside his to help push, all of them bearing the weight of it together. Even when Weskham and Cid moved on, there were others - beautiful Aulea, quiet smiling Sylva. Regis and Clarus got older, but then their kids stepped in, Noctis and Gladio and Ignis and Prompto and Luna taking on the weight of war and destiny when their parents no longer could. 

And still Cor pushed on, doing his part, doing as much as he could. Now he finally feels like he's reached the top, the end, the goal... 

And he's alone. 

Not _completely_ alone, of course, but there's a bereavement he can't shake, a hollow feeling of wondering why he even bothered this long, when he couldn't save the ones he most wanted to. He never expected to survive the dark. In a way he never _wanted_ to survive the dark. He's done everything he was meant to, lived out his purpose. There's nothing else to fight and he'd been looking forward to the peace of death and whatever comes after. Maybe if he's really lucky the Regalia will be waiting for him, with Regis sitting on the hood and laughing while Clarus lays on the horn. 

There are two paths laid before him in the bright sunlight of the Dawn. He can continue as he always has, take up his sword, rebuild the Crownsguard again. If they're going to rebuild some semblance of real society, they'll need some sort of security, a police force to keep peace. Cor could build the backbone of that sort of system in his sleep, bend his shoulders into a new duty and push ahead. 

Until... what? 

He's tired in a way he suspects sleep will never fix. He's _old_ , or at least getting there, and he can feel forty years of fighting in his bones. He doesn't want to continue on this way for another ten or twenty, not without his King to serve. 

Cor lets out the breath he's been holding, and claps a hand on Libertus' shoulder. "You're going to be the Marshal of the Crownsguard," he says, ignoring the surprised squawk from Libertus. "And I... am going to retire." 

\------- 

At first, he travels. Monica insists on coming with him, which he's grateful for, though he suspects it's mostly so she can report back to Iris and Libertus that he's eating and sleeping and hasn't fallen off of anything and hit his head. 

They go to the ruins of Altissia. There's no sign of Weskham in the broken up remains of Maagho, but Cor hadn't really been expecting to find anything. It was a long shot, but he hasn't seen Weskham since the darkness began so long ago, and he had to try and be sure. 

Around Gralea, the snow is beginning to melt. Darkness had swept Niflheim just as surely as the rest of the world, and they'd gotten quite a few refugees into Lestallum. It had caused tensions at first, but eventually as the years dragged on, camaraderie in darkness had served to end the war in truth as well as in name. Now the people are filtering back, wandering dazed around their old homes and trying to reclaim what they could, much as the Lucians were doing in Insomnia. 

He wonders, standing in the doorway of the old royal tomb in Keycatrich, if Regis or Noctis would want a place like this. 

It's up to him, really. He's found himself in an odd place, retired but constantly consulted because he'd been on Regis' council, knows more about the way the government used to function than anyone else still alive. Not a week goes by that he isn't shown some new proposed law and anxiously asked "Do you think His Majesty would approve?" 

It's ludicrous, and the sort of thing Regis would have found hilarious, that Cor is the unwilling mouthpiece for the old monarchy. 

Luckily he's close by in Galdin, observing the rebuilding when he gets Cindy's call. He drops what he's doing and heads north, moving faster than he has in years. Cindy meets him at the door and smiles, tired but at peace, and gives his shoulder a wordless squeeze before moving aside for him. 

Cor lets out a sigh and moves to take the chair beside Cid's bed and reaches out to wrap his hands around the old mechanic's. The picture sitting on the bedside table is the one Clarus had taken of the rest of them forty-something years and a lifetime ago. Cor stares at it, trying to equate the lock-jawed scrawny teenager in the picture with himself, the smirking, irreverent mechanic with the frail old man in front of him. "Hey Cid." 

One of Cid's eyes cracks open, managing to look so like his huffy old self that Cor smiles. "Baby Crownsguard," he says slowly, making Cor's smile widen. He'd hated that name with a burning passion when Cid gave it to him at age fifteen. Now he knew it for the affection it was. "Y'made it." 

Cor swallows around the lump in his throat and gives Cid's hand a squeeze. He's not even strong enough to grip it in return. "You did too," he says quietly. "Make sure you tell Reg all about the Dawn." 

It hits him a few hours later, after the sun has set and he's sitting on the roof of the garage swapping old stories with Cindy, that he's the only one left. 

"I've never heard that story!" Cindy exclaims, laughing despite her sorrow. They've all known for awhile that Cid didn't have much time. "Paw Paw never talked about that trip much, and I never wanted to press. I had no idea you lot got into so much trouble!" 

"So much trouble," Cor agrees with a sad smile, shaking his head. "It was probably too bitter for him to talk about, with everything that came after, but those are some of the fondest memories I have. Your grandfather did so much for me." 

"I never knew," Cindy shakes her head in wonderment, and Cor realizes that no one did. 

\------- 

He begins to write. 

At first, he writes for Cindy and Iris, to share the stories that only he knows, stories they might appreciate, might bring them comfort or make them smile. But soon enough it's much more than that. It's Aranea that points out a first-person historical record would be invaluable, and so Cor begins to write everything. 

He writes about the war, about Mors pulling back the Wall and abandoning the rest of Lucis. He writes about consequences, about the battles in Cavaugh that planted a seed of bitterness in Titus Drautos, and ten years later gave birth to General Glauca. He writes about choices, about the destruction of Galahd and a hero named Nyx Ulric, fueled by Libertus leaning back with a cup of coffee and sharing his own stories. 

He writes about Regis, how heavy the crown and Crystal weighed on him over the years, but how determined he was to push forward, to do what needed done for the sake of his people, for the sake of his son. About Clarus' loyalty even to the end, ever at Regis' side because he not only loved his King, he loved _Regis_ , and died for that love. About Noctis, the shy kind boy that Cor watched grow for thirty years, about Ignis and Gladiolus and Prompto, bowed but never broken, jerked around by the Astrals' whims. 

Cor writes about them too, about the Astrals who played chess with the people Cor loved the most, his own anger that there was nothing he could do, no way to break the chains of destiny. He had to stand and watch them all fall, and now all he can do is make sure they're never forgotten, that the truth is known. 

He writes about Regis' smile, the way his laughter would echo through the council chamber after everyone else had gone; Clarus' hand curling firm around Regis' elbow to help support him when his knee gave out; he makes sure to share the human side of the men he knew, so they won't get lost as monolithic figures of history. 

They deserve more than that. 

He writes everything he can remember, everything he can manage. Iris takes each manuscript from him as he finishes, and he honestly has no idea if she's publishing them for mass consumption or secreting them away into a historical vault somewhere. That matters less to Cor than the fact that at least it's all recorded. 

He lives most of the time in Hammerhead. It's comfortable there, quiet, even with Cid gone it feels the closest to home for Cor. Insomnia is being rebuilt slowly but surely, but it's not his Insomnia anymore. 

He goes back to the Citadel once, toward the very end. He's written down everything he can think of, every detail of the war, the darkness, the Dawn, every moment of the roadtrip, every demon, every moment of regret and heartache. He's written not only his own stories, but Libertus', Aranea's, every angle he could get. If this is the reason he was allowed to survive - and he thinks more and more it is - then he's done all he can. 

The graves are still unmarked, technically. The Citadel itself is being partially restored, and Cor's heard it's going to be turned into a museum and preserved as a reminder of all that was lost to bring the Dawn. A tree's been planted in the center of the gardens, a tall strong oak that will spread its branches for generations. There's a stone monolith placed below it, carved with their names. Not even their titles or accolades, those are commemorated elsewhere. Here, it's simple ' _Gladiolus Amicitia - Ignis Scientia - Prompto Argentum - Noctis Lucis Caelum_ '. 

But more surprisingly, the whole area has been planted with sylleblossoms. 

"Where did these come from?" he asks Iris. "I went to Tenebrae after the Dawn, and it looked like none of the sylleblossoms had survived." 

Iris shrugs. "That's what everyone else thought too, but they began growing here a few years ago, all on their own. Maybe..." 

A dog barking startles them both, and they turn to look just in time to see a fluffy white dog disappearing among the trees. Umbra pauses a moment longer, panting happily at them, just long enough for them both to be sure what they saw before he follows his sister. 

Iris starts laughing, wrapping her arm around Cor's to hug him. "Looks like you've got another story to write." 

Cor smiles faintly. He can hear the Regalia in his dreams now, Regis' laughter and Clarus singing off-key, getting closer every day. 

"Maybe just one more."


End file.
